There’s this great article on how reading habits are gradually changing over the years. While I’m glad the Internet has now made it possible for me to access a wide variety of reading material at the touch of a button, it’s sad that experiencing a real book, for all its palpable fervor, is a diminishing custom.I introduced Santosh to a news aggregator yesterday, ever since the Ahmedabad blasts squealed the ones in Bangalore…and he’s been hooked ever since. It’s just another evidence vindicating the many advantages of online reading viz-viz reading in print.I see the line gradually blurring between the two as technology evolves faster than we can imagine. Japan already has a newspaper that closely mimics the conventional look and feel but whose ‘print’ is refreshed each morning, thanks to an embedded chip receiving wireless signals from the news publisher. Amazon’s Kindle is taking baby steps into abolishing the need for conventional print while the iPhone makes for a crude but functi…

Choosing a shirt in the morning for office is like choosing a groom for your daughter.You know they were all good once upon a time.You know they're ruined now and not worthy anymore.You know time is running out.You know you must choose one among them.You arrive at your choice by the process of rejection, not selection.You reject all initially, then become a bit more tolerant.Once you acquiesce, you discover flaws so glaring, you almost decide to go back to square one.Finally frustrated, you give up and accept fate.You still harbor a secret desire to accidentally discover the right one.

Why are some people under the impression that answering an email isn’t obligatory? Is it because emails aren’t disruptive and you can use your own sweet will to completely ignore them without feeling a twang of guilt? Is it because drag-&-drop is a lot easier than typing a response? Is it because we simply don’t feel for others? Or is it because doing nothing comes by default!I think it’s a mix of all of the above and a lot more. I’ve time and again realized emails generally don’t elicit the response they deserve. Even official mails often go unanswered. The retaliatory mail I sent to the office finance section today has a rich antecedence in having the desired effect. I had sent a query last week about the status of a package. I received a response from finance asking me to directly email someone in the same section! Couldn’t they simply forward the query to the person concerned? Anyway, I redirected my query last Thursday. No response until today. I resent the query yet again. N…

The day may gradually slip into irrelevance, but it's significant nevertheless. Earth has steadfastly stayed on course and completed 3 revolutions around the Sun since I joined the present company. Kudos, Earth! I celebrated the momentous occasion by surreptitiously devouring 4 chocolate bars. If sharing is caring, I prefer being careless!Today also confirmed a suspicion I always had: not all 34" are the same size, some are really 36" or even 38". Thanks to my newly altered jeans making me look anorexic, I'll now buy trousers only after trying them.Form 16 was resent to my inbox after a high-voltage mail exhorted the hastening.Shuttle #33 witnessed a miracle during the return trip: the AC was turned on for the first time since I started using the bus in April-2007! I couldn't believe my good fortune as the AC roared into life at the outset. I allowed a steady stream of cool air to pamper me till my destination.'Mr.Roving Eyes' was hell-bent upon digg…

Why don’t some people realize they probably aren’t audible when the listener has a pair of earphones plugged in? The only way to deal with such retards is to crank up the volume.Stupidity, like the sky above, is boundless.

I wonder why do gamblers from Las Vegas try their luck in Silicon Valley. They should spend their time in casinos and not board meetings. Pimping technology companies is not what they should be allowed to do.

I made a rare early exit from office today. The only penalty for such an ‘escape’ lies in the walk back home from the shuttle stop being a rather long one. A colleague accompanied for some distance before we parted ways…she was headed home while I had to visit a shopping mall en route.On exiting from the mall, I discovered an usually pleasant and inviting surrounding. I was suspicious of a minor storm, maybe even a rainfall. However, the ambient splendor coaxed me not to seek refuge. I braved the wild winds.I knew I was cunningly tricked when it eventually began to drizzle. I new I was duped big time when the rainfall unleashed its full fury without any warning. Already considerably drenched, seeking shelter would be a waste. People had already scuttled for cover, a few cars hurriedly honked, my shirt and trousers had hugged me in a cold embrace and a young rickshaw driver passing by asked if I would like to hop inside. I disappointed him.I looked up at the sky, it was a monochromati…

Liszt was perhaps the only famous musical composer who lived a life that wasn’t tragic. He lived long, was a prolific womanizer, was revered wherever he went, had remarkable showmanship and is considered by some to have been the greatest pianist in history.Liszt is also the only composer I chose to entirely ignore, perhaps because I decided Chopin couldn’t possibly be beaten. As I finally take to him, I can see how ignorant I’ve been of the genius.

She’s getting married early next year to a creative director in Vietnam! People are really going places nowadays.Among countless things about her, I’ll always remember how she would constantly remind me to drink water! I wish her marital bliss.

This is how an article begins in today’s edition of The Economic Times. Egregious mistakes are by no means confined to Indian publications alone. I find them often in American publications of repute as well.

It’s a lost cause.All tailors but one were absconding when I approached the shop with yet another mercy plea for my altered jeans. The loner professed being deaf to all languages except the vernacular. I figured where this would be going and decided to show up yet again tomorrow.

I don’t recall my tailor ever altering my trousers (or sewing a button) on time. My pair of jeans was supposed to be scissored, stitched and readied for delivery by Saturday evening. Knowing how religiously Indians adhere to schedule, I decided to offer them some buffer and went to procure my belonging only tonight after returning from office.They looked blankly at me, as if I had asked for enriched Uranium! The needle-in-a-haystack hunt began and I was stranded for well over 15 mins before the elusive package was discovered languishing in some forgotten alcove.A further discovery reiterated my faith in the timelessness of our civilization. The team of good-for-nothing tailors had conveniently forgotten all about my jeans. Just like old times! The skinny lady at the counter meekly offered to get the job done by tomorrow.I’ve often wondered why do tailors generally specialize in ladies or gents. Any clues? Man and woman aren’t as different as cow and goat.

I went to sleep when the early morning birds had already began to chirp. Woke up in a little over 4 hours. Gave my jeans for altering, dropped a cheque, had breakfast, bought a few things from the grocery, came back home and washed some clothes.Suman and Bablu dropped by in the afternoon lugging a Lenovo laptop that was obviously Internet starved. It went online immediately and voraciously gobbled the bytes.I had a nasty scare when my iPod froze in the evening after ‘playing’ six seconds of silence into a track. Andromeda refused to connect to it and my only hope was to let the battery drain out in 24 hrs before I could try to revive it. Visiting the Apple site provided me with a solution to resetting the device, and thankfully it worked. Apparently, this is a known issue with the iPod.Partially reviewed a friend’s research work. My eyes are burning and I’m too tired to continue any longer.

Peace is a welcome dweller at home ever since the TV moved out. The former television enthusiasts who would passively spend hours on end in front of the blaring idiot box, are now talking amongst themselves. Favorite topics of discussion: children, soaring prices, cooking, natives and the usual nothings.

I went to Big Bazaar on my way home from office to buy something for my laptop, which turned out to be unavailable. Wanting to make the most of an otherwise wasted visit, I decided to buy some briefs. I spotted them, liked them and then realized I didn’t know which size fits me. I was too lazy to avail of the trial room to ‘look inside’.I moved on and found a shirt that caught my fancy. The size ‘L’ once again put me in a predicament though. Was I size ‘L’ or ‘XL’? Oh, forget it! The shirt went back to its stack.Finally, it was the turn of a pair of size 32” jeans to allure me. I bought it without a moment’s hesitation, only to gradually realize as I was heading for the exit that I perhaps wore 34”. 32 or 34? 34 or 32? Must be 34. Yes, it’s 34! Convinced that the 32” years were past me by a couple of years, I had a trying time exchanging for the right size.Since it was past 8PM, I couldn’t get my jeans altered and was asked to come the next day instead. It’s too much of an ask to wal…

Okay, it’s not exactly picturesque. These are 8 photos taken on my Nokia N72 ‘stitched’ together making the panorama. The 9th frame failed to superimpose with the vertical edges of the terminal frames (I turned too much), thus failing to complete a true 360 view.Look carefully and you may discover something very weird!

Now that I’m already on my way to internal restructuring (without disturbing my organs), I might as well return to my first love: star gazing.Galileo discovered Jupiter and its 4 largest satellites using a refractor with 33x magnification. I’ve figured there’s no chance I could possibly discover something as significant as Jupiter (everything that can be discovered has been discovered by the morons who came before me who had nothing else to do), but that hasn’t demoralized me one bit. After all, just looking at the clear night sky itself can be exhilarating enough.To assist me in the research (searching yet again), I’ll buy a telescope (pictured above) from Tejraj after the monsoon is over. When things get more serious, I’ll upgrade to more powerful refractors and reflectors.

Okay, I’ve been hard at work, almost on a war footing, to distance myself from the addictive browser. Incredibly enough, I’ve already been using enough tools over the past few months/years to reduce my dependence in the browser. I guess it’s time for me to add the finishing touch.For email, I use Windows Live Mail. For chatting, I’m on Yahoo! Messenger for Vista and GTalk. For blogging, I misuse Windows Live Writer. For reading news, I’ve restarted using FeedDemon. I’m now subscribing to only a handful of feeds as compared to the countless ones on Google Reader. To carry news with me when I’m traveling to and fro the office, I’m now subscribing to VOA podcasts via FeedStation. My online expense manager is already synched with Microsoft Excel via DocSyncer.All this might sound silly, but this is the only way I can reduce my time spent online. I hope to switch to my new routine by Saturday. There are many more steps in austerity to be taken.

I was waiting with baited breath for this product, and I missed its beta launch since that’s when I had to abruptly leave for Kolkata for mom’s operation.I’ll play with WWT in the days, months and hopefully years to come. The reviews have been rave.